I had the pleasure of interviewing my current biology professor, Dr. Cynthia Surmacz. She helped me identify the many different types of writing that she does in her field of work and in the typical day of a collegiate biology professor. She also informed me more about the writing that she does specifically. For example, she told me about the audiences she writes to, the purpose for her writing, and what she personally takes away from her writing. I was surprised to find out that in the science field there’s a lot of writing being done even though it’s typically portrayed as the exact opposite. Dr. Surmacz does all the typical writing that you’d expect of a professor like letters of recommendation, lab manuals, exams, and scientific papers but I was shocked to discover that as well as all those other scripts she also constructs advertisements and signs. See, I always believed that only marketers and advertising agents or people in the business field would be the ones to create advertisements. I would never guess that anyone in the science field would ever create an advertisement but the more that I think about it I can picture some advertisements that might have been designed by a person who works in the science field. In a typical day of Dr. Surmacz she mainly writes e-mails, memos, quizzes, and letters of recommendation for her students. I wasn’t surprised that her purpose for writing is to communicate the scientific processes and to inform people more about these processes. The moment I stepped foot into her office I could feel her enthusiasm about biology just radiating off of her. Her goal is to transfer this information to her students through her lab manual so that they can retain it. I can personally say that she just demands your attention in the classroom with her sheer joy to be teaching. She always finds a way to communicate her purpose thoroughly in class and manages to do it in a fun way too.
Since she is a biology professor it’s no surprise that she writes for her students, professional colleagues, and other scientists. These are the audiences that I expected a biologist would write for. Although I was surprised that she couldn’t think of one article that she really admired especially since she said how she isn’t a strong writer herself. I would have thought that she had at least one article that she would refer to help her with her own writing. Even though most of Dr. Surmacz’s answers weren’t surprising I was certainly shocked to find out that throughout college she didn’t have to do a lot of writing in her courses. I certainly have had numerous papers to write throughout my college career and I’ve only been here for one semester. This might be why she feels so accomplished whenever she finishes a paper she worked really hard on. She always gets a sense of pride from her writing since she doesn’t believe this to be one of her strengths. I definitely learned that if you’re trying to go into a field where there isn’t much writing to be done you shouldn’t go into a science field. Even though it comes across as not having to deal with writing biology actually does quite a bit of it. I realized that a great portion of the writing done in this field is about scientific findings and sharing that with other scientists and colleagues.
I was surprised to find out that in the science field there’s a lot of writing being done even though it’s typically portrayed as the exact opposite. Dr. Surmacz does all the typical writing that you’d expect of a professor like letters of recommendation, lab manuals, exams, and scientific papers but I was shocked to discover that as well as all those other scripts she also constructs advertisements and signs. See, I always believed that only marketers and advertising agents or people in the business field would be the ones to create advertisements. I would never guess that anyone in the science field would ever create an advertisement but the more that I think about it I can picture some advertisements that might have been designed by a person who works in the science field. In a typical day of Dr. Surmacz she mainly writes e-mails, memos, quizzes, and letters of recommendation for her students.
I wasn’t surprised that her purpose for writing is to communicate the scientific processes and to inform people more about these processes. The moment I stepped foot into her office I could feel her enthusiasm about biology just radiating off of her. Her goal is to transfer this information to her students through her lab manual so that they can retain it. I can personally say that she just demands your attention in the classroom with her sheer joy to be teaching. She always finds a way to communicate her purpose thoroughly in class and manages to do it in a fun way too.
Since she is a biology professor it’s no surprise that she writes for her students, professional colleagues, and other scientists. These are the audiences that I expected a biologist would write for. Although I was surprised that she couldn’t think of one article that she really admired especially since she said how she isn’t a strong writer herself. I would have thought that she had at least one article that she would refer to help her with her own writing.
Even though most of Dr. Surmacz’s answers weren’t surprising I was certainly shocked to find out that throughout college she didn’t have to do a lot of writing in her courses. I certainly have had numerous papers to write throughout my college career and I’ve only been here for one semester. This might be why she feels so accomplished whenever she finishes a paper she worked really hard on. She always gets a sense of pride from her writing since she doesn’t believe this to be one of her strengths.
I definitely learned that if you’re trying to go into a field where there isn’t much writing to be done you shouldn’t go into a science field. Even though it comes across as not having to deal with writing biology actually does quite a bit of it. I realized that a great portion of the writing done in this field is about scientific findings and sharing that with other scientists and colleagues.